By Ted Dabrowski, includes “… Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has proposed spending $8 billion in 2022, $2.2 billion more than the $5.9 billion the county spent in pre-COVID 2019. … Some have lauded Preckwinkle’s proposal because it doesn’t have a tax increase and doesn’t spend the one billion in federal stimulus all at once – more on that below – but the reality is the Cook County budget is a failure for the same reason Chicago’s is: The budget sets Cook County residents up for a fiscal cliff once the free federal money is gone.”